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Wednesday, 25 April 2012

The first cut is the deepest!

It's been over a week since I took a steeking workshop but I'm finally getting around to writing about it now. But then again I only sewed on the buttons yesterday so I really had to wait until the headband was actually finished - that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!

On the 14th, I spent a lovely day with my sister in law, E and other knitters taking a steeking workshop with the wonderful Kate Davies at This is Knit. For homework we knitted a lovely colourwork headband in the round. This was my second colour work project ever but I was very happy with how it turned out. Then at the workshop it was down to the cutting aaaahhhhh!

First up, Kate gave a great presentation on her steeking technique the "steek sandwich" with lots of step by step instructions and photos to prepare us. Then we were told it was time to steek. First we did some crochet reinforcement.

Then we cut between the crochet. I was obviously so scared by this I forgot to take a photo but you can see some over on E's blog.

Once that was done, the rest was straight forward. We made the "sandwich" and did an i-cord bind off. See that light blue bit along the button band, that's the "sandwich". It helps tidy up and further stablize the steek while reinforcing the button band too. I really like this sandwich technique because of the double protection of the steek, no worry about it unraveling unexpectedly.

The workshop was also blogged about by This is Knit and by Kate Davies. Myself and E are shown on Kate's blog in the middle of cutting. That may look like extreme concentration but there was also a mantras of "don't unravel, don't unravel" and "why in God's name am I CUTTING my knitting" going around my head.

All in all it was a great class and a great day out for this mammy. It's rare that I have a day out of just me without little man so I get the most out of them when I do. Although I'm happy enough that they are rare, I like spending time with my little man too much.

Oh and I should get a plug in about the shawl pin mentioned at the end of Kate's blog. It was designed by my sister in law exclusively for This is Knit and can be found on their website here.

Finally, I thought I'd leave you with a yummy recipe for meatloaf (which we had for dinner last night). Julie (joolieknits on ravelry) gave me the link to the recipe she uses. It's by the pioneer woman and can be found here. The blog gives great step by step instructions and it is possibly the easiest recipe ever. The only things I changed was to use basil instead of parsley as that's what I had to hand the first time I made it and prosciutto (Serrano works just as well as I found out last night) instead of the bacon. Then for the sauce as I really don't like tabasco, I used about half and half ketchup and hot chilli ketchup. It all turned out yummy in the end anyway, so I'd recommend giving it a try.